Mens sana in corpore sano (“a healthy mind in a healthy
body”); panem et circenses (“bread and circuses”, or
“bread and races”); sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
(“but who will guard the guards themselves?”). No doubt these
sayings are familiar to many, but probably few are aware of their
source: the Satires of the Roman poet Juvenal. However, Juvenal’s
fame rests on far more than a miscellany of perceptive and succinct
observations on life and society. It was his vivid, often lurid,
portrayal—mainly in the first two books of his poems—of what he
perceived to be a hopelessly decadent and corrupt society, and his
vigorous and highly rhetorical style of …

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